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If you spend any time on the official Star Wars: The Old Republic forums, you are sure to have seen his passion and prose regarding all things Jedi. You know him as Professor Walsh. Each week (or thereabouts,) Professor Walsh will answer a few reader-submitted questions in order to enlighten us all with the ways of Star Wars lore and history, in this sometimes highly-opinionated piece. You can submit your own question at the end of the article!
Welcome to another edition of Ask A Jedi where we try answer your questions regarding lore and history within the Star Wars universe, of course with a focus on The Old Republic!
This week, reader Judas submitted the following question:
Dear Jedi,
How come people think that the Jedi are actually good? According to BioWare the Republic committed genocide against the Sith.
Thank you for the question Judas. This one is rather complicated, so it is going to take a little time to explain.
First of all, I think there is a little misunderstanding regarding the timelines presented by Gnost-Dural. BioWare has told us that Gnost-Dural works with knowledge that he was able to gather which may, or may not be, incorrect. This means that just because Gnost-Dural says it doesn’t mean that it is factual nor does it mean that it is the stance that BioWare has on the subject.
Gnost-Dural doesn’t use the word “genocide” but he does imply that a genocidal act took place. There are also supporting documents within Star Wars lore that corroborate the theory but it has not been ever clearly stated. The factual truth to this matter then is a bit ambiguous. It is also important to note that the Republic is not the Jedi Order.
This presents us with a few problems. The first of these is that according to how the Dark Side has always been treated if the Order were to participate in such an action, there would have been a mass number of people falling to the Dark Side, the numbers would have been unprecedented and as such there would be no way that such an incident would not be well documented. The second problem with this is that we know that there are still tombs and artifacts on Korriban and other locations.
I am going to take a moment to investigate the second of those statements. It is possible to explain away those other locations with a simple statement of, “The Jedi may not have known about them.” However the problem with Korriban is that the Jedi knew about Korriban. There are temples on Korriban.
If you are going to wipe out all traces of a culture the one thing that you are not going to do is leave their large monolithic tombs completely untouched. You are going to take turbolasers to them and turn them into glass and powder. The planet’s surface could have literally been melted into glass by the technology the Republic had access to. If the Republic or the Jedi wanted to commit genocide that is the first thing they would have done, yet they did not.
Another factor, thanks to the “Tales of the Jedi” comic series, we know for a fact that Naga Sadow was given a chance to surrender. There is no reason for us to believe that the same offer of surrender would not be made to the Sith, especially if there actually were Sith civilians. We also know from other Star Wars sources that following their defeat the Sith began launching suicide attacks against the Republic and there is no mention of a surrender attempt on their part.
There is just so much conflicting data regarding this that it is really hard to pin down. It is clear that there was no genocide. The mass falling to the Dark Side that would have happened did not and the temples on Korriban were not destroyed. Thus we can conclude that no true genocide attempt occurred on a grand scale.
I do, however, have a theory.
This is speculation mind you, however here is how I see the most likely scenario. There were likely some Republic (and possibly even Jedi) groups who took things too far. Maybe they targeted civilians, maybe they went for a scorched earth policy on a remote place that the Sith were.
It is possible that these events were passed around to the Sith and, like any rumor, grew and grew. It is possible that the Sith believe that the Jedi and Republic attempted to commit genocide against them when in fact no such event occurred. It is also possible that Master Gnost-Dural got his hands on some documentation that represents this and, lacking any real ability to check facts because the great library would have been destroyed when the Temple on Coruscant fell.
Basically we have Gnost-Dural unwittingly spreading false information. This makes him a poor historian, yes, but he’s made some contradictory statements before thus such a mistake is highly plausible. That would be my take on it anyway.
So, to recap.
People believe the Jedi are good because for the most part the Jedi are good. Like any organization they will have a black mark here or there but for the most part they are good and they try to do good. That is simply how things are.
There was no genocide. There is no conclusive evidence to support the genocide accusation and there is plenty of evidence that suggests that no such event happened. When you add the information up it seems pretty clear that, more or less, Gnost-Dural isn’t giving us the complete or completely true story, though it may be the truth as far as he knows it.
I hope you all enjoyed this week’s column. May the Force be with you, always.
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Master Gnost-Dural